i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

A nearly-belated #DogValentine (xpost from twitter)

Roses smell good
Poop does too
Dogs can't write poems
But they sure do love you


Bonus

Roses are greyish
Violets are greyish
Dogs can't see color
SQUIRREL

Note to my cat:

This is just to say

I have yeeted
the spider
that was on
my leg

and which
you were probably saving
for a midnight snack

Forgive me
it was necessary
so leggy
and so AAAAAHFUCKNOGETITOFF

...I'm tired of not being okay. And I can't claw myself back to some semblance of anything normal. So instead I'm working on playing with redefining "okay" (that is, changing my expectations of what good-enough actually is). That and accepting things as they are (that is, accepting my own limitations etc). And also practicing gentler vocabulary towards myself, like replacing "working on" with something less dreary, like "practicing" or "playing with", and like de-should-ing things, and just ... stuff.

Okay?

Okay.

Here, have a haiku:

2021
let's hope it's kinda boring
that would be okay

I find it difficult
to celebrate freedom
when so many are not free

people hiding who they are
or whom they love

people caged and separated
for the audacity
of wanting to live.

I find it difficult
to sing an anthem
celebrating war

when what the world needs
is peace

But

There are good things still
and I can celebrate:
love
faith
creativity
hope
those are my freedoms
in this world

(and the sunset's red glare / dragonflies zipping through air / gave proof to my heart / that my God is still there)

The edges of my face are
tender, like the crispy
tightness of sunburn. It is
the wrong time of year
to be sunburnt -- winter is not
typical sunburn season -- and
the skin is pale, not red,
touched by water and fingers and
towel as it dried my hair.
Touching the pillow (same case as
there was yesterday) is like
the gentle rasp of sandpaper
to my skin.

It does not tell me why.

Somewhere on the back of my
scalp, left of center, is an oddly
sore spot, that did not appreciate
shampoo or the press of fingers
scrubbing. I do not recall anything
smacking me in the head, but it is
swollen just a little, bruised like a
super-ripened peach. I usually enjoy a
scratchy sort of massage with my hair wash,
soap almost secondary to the rub, but the
sore spots does not let me enjoy any
sensory pleasures.

It does not tell me why.

There are other complaints,
signals coming in from other
territories eager to claim their
share of complaints. Muscles are
tense and will not stay relaxed;
skin itches, dry or oily or both;
tightness around my nose means
something not good, but it has not
told me what is coming; right now my
sinuses are clear but carry a constant
threat of pressure, like a thunderstorm
stirring ominously on the horizon;
this moment my knees are content but any
shift threatens to bring pain; etc.

There may be an end to this litany of
sorrows, but it is far off, as far as
the possibility of a brain that does not
succumb to brainweasels, to the
twin agonies of anxiety and depression that I
seesaw between (and if I lose my balance
the fall is long and terrifying), to
shame that erodes and doubt that weighs down,
to all the things I am carefully not listing
so that I do not obsess over them, but
that does not mean they are not there,
skulking, waiting to devour.

They do not tell me why.

Content warning for self-harm and images of injury

( Read more... )

Sometimes I wonder if ever the trees
Find themselves burdened with thoughts such as these:

"I am old, I am crooked and gnarled and squat
And all that I wish I could be, I am not.

Not tall like the redwoods that reach towards the sky
Nor bendy like aspen that shimmer and sigh.

My bark is uneven, not glossy and sleek;
My branches, when wind-stirred, don't whisper but creak.

My leaves have not come yet, my branches are bare,
Though warm is the weather and spring in the air.

The birds do not choose me, for perch or for nests;
The squirrels run elsewhere, as other trees' guests

I am old, I am ugly, I fail as tree
And yet there is not a thing else I could be."

...Do trees ever ponder on what could have been
Or what they should do, or how they can "win"?

Or do they just live and then die in due course,
Unfettered by fear or by guilt or remorse,

With roots to keep grounded, connected with earth,
That keep them from doubting about their own worth,

And leaves to leap skyward, aloft in the breeze,
To drink in the sun’s warmth and keep them at ease;

And never to fear about unused potential,
But simply to concentrate on the essentials

Of dreaming in winter, re-waking in spring,
Without undue worries of what time will bring.

Do trees ever worry? If not, then my plea
Is that someday I may be reborn as a tree.

There is a kind of sadness that lives inside me
A tight, choking, painful sadness
Hungry and hollow and needy and desperate
That has no name

My heart is sheathed in iron bands forged too small
My throat is sewn tightly and held closed
So that nothing may escape
Except the tears that leak unwanted from my eyes
And sometimes, if I am alone,
A low wild keening sound that slips past me

I do not know the face of this sadness
For it hides itself -- shame, perhaps, or secrecy
I do not know the name of this sadness
For it does not introduce itself -- it is just here

It might be grief
For things that were but are no more
Or things that never were or cannot be
It might be anger
Towards the world, the universe,
Or myself
It might be loneliness
For the isolation enforced by depression and disability
It might be pain
Too sharp for words or thoughts
Too primitive to be explained

It does not tell me, and it does not let me go
It will not be ignored
It can only be embraced as part of me
And endured

And perhaps
Since it is within me
Perhaps
Loved

I wish
instead of focusing just on
"save for a rainy day"
or
"save for a special occasion"
that we -- that I --
had been taught also
how to savor the moment

because sometimes
things cannot be stayed
indefinitely --
objects can go bad, dry out, turn stale
people and situations can change
nothing is forever

and sometimes
we do not have infinite moments
and saving something for tomorrow
does not work
if we run out of tomorrows

sometimes
I need to remember
there is no better moment than now
no better place than here